Pain and Regeneration
by EpenaMatoran
Summary: Set after the events of "The Timeless Children" but the Judoon don't capture the Doctor. But she still feels pain...
1. Sleep Deprived

The whizzing of the time machine came to a stop. The Doctor sighed, brushing away a tassel of her short blonde hair. She looked at the interior of the Type-50 she was in. The Time Lords never changed their interior design much. "Well. time to go. Shame you'll be stuck here forever, but what can you do?"

She opened the door of the machine, only to look over the bleak, rocky planet she loved, now a war zone. The valley, once covered with trees and flowers, was covered with weapons, armor, and bones. The only thing that seemed alive was the TARDIS she stepped out of.

She looked up over at the disguise- a vibrant tree. "Chameleon Arch! Such a good thing." But then she looked over at the old, battered police box in the corner- _her _TARDIS. "No, not just that. It's my home." Each stride more confident than the next, she virtually ran over to the TARDIS. "Well, mate. Hello. I've missed you." She opened the doors as wide as possible, closing them with the snap of a finger as she walked in.

The orange glow of the TARDIS encapsulated the console room. The Doctor breathed in a long sigh. She had been trying to fight something off, ever since she fell that night so long ago- the night that she became the Doctor. "What did I say those final moments of my last regeneration…" She stepped up to the console, her strange, quirky console. She starred, blankly. "What did I say?"

The whirring of lights turning on in the background jolted her from her mindlessness. Being in the Matrix too long hurt. She looked over in the corner to the stairs. "Yes, yes your right," she said, glancing at the console. "Rest is what I need." She walked up the stairs into the hallway. The endless hallway of rooms, secrets, and mysteries. She finally turned to her room. Since becoming female, she changed the room to suit her needs, or at least the TARDIS did. She was never sure.

But before she opened the door, she turned. As expected, the three doors adjacent to hers were gone. She sighed and shook her head. "They're never coming back?" She kicked the floor and went into her room. Taking off her boots, she plummeted down onto her bed. Sleep came easy. "Be kind," she mumbled.

* * *

The pain was unceasing as if a knife was cutting into her. She opened her eyes, and gasped, getting up from the bed as quickly as she could. "Ah, why," she said, wobbling up to see herself in her old, Victorian mirror. She breathed in to fight off the pain for a while. "I need water…"

She sighed, clutching her chest as she hobbled to the console room, finally grabbing a bottle of water from a secret compartment. She guzzled the water up. "Ah, that feels better." The TARDIS whirred. The Doctor turned around. "What? I'm perfectly fine," she said, getting another water bottle. "I can't help chest pains in the night." She took a sip from her bottle and sighed.

The TARDIS whirred once again. She rolled her eyes. "Please-" Her eyes widened as she dropped her bottle. "No, it can't be," she hesitated. She looked down at her hands, the energy flowing from them. She doubled her fists.

"No, I can't," she shouted. "Not yet." She turned around and huffed. "I'm just tired! That's all. Good night."


	2. Letting Go

But sleep did not avail her the comfort she wanted. The hours seemed as if they were minutes or seconds of a quick willow-wisp on the water. The tears flowed down her eyes. She had let go of the only people who would be there to comfort her.

"Ryan, Yaz, Graham," she whispered, almost hoping life was a dream. The pain was almost searing now, a pain she thought was gone. "Oh, Graham, if only I could apologize to you now," she cried. She turned and tossed, hoping to just forget everything. "If only I had pressed that button- It would all be over. I would vanish from the world, and all memory of Time Lord civilization would disappear from this universe."

The Time Lady got up from the unkempt bed and looked at herself in the mirror. She was wearing an old, baby blue nightgown, she found in the wardrobe. Probably Nyssa's or Victoria's. Time blurred around her head. She heaved a breath, saying "I can't live in the body anymore. I must let go…"

The blood-red flame emanated from her hands, but she doubled her fists to hold it back. "...but it hurts too much to let go." She turned, hardly bearing to look at the mess she was in. "I could have ended it all. I could have killed all of us. The Master, his terror, and my life."

"Yes, Doctor- all you could have done was die," a little voice in her head laughed.

She turned, to look back at herself.

"But you didn't Doc'," The old familiar voice of Graham said heartily. "And that's what makes you who you are. You aren't gonna' stoop down to the low levels of the baddies you've stopped.

"Graham? Where are you?" She shouted. Suddenly a whole host of voices flooded her mind.

"Doctor, you can stick through it, you just have to believe," Ryan and Yaz said, in a chant-like manner.

"Ya' still 'ave a duty, Doctor," the highlander said.

"Come on Doctor, you've faced regeneration before. You can face it again," the voice of Peri said.

"Jamie, is that you? Peri?" The voices in her mind were taking picture form, though wispy and blurred.

For a moment, the Doctor smiled, but then the pain was searing again. "Oh, you can't listen to them, Doctor," the strange voice said again. "But I know who you should.."

"You are you? Show yourself!" The Doctor demanded.

"Alright," the voice said, right before a strange ripple of thunder.

"The Doctor must die!" The Cyberleader said, the images more clear for her, before switching to a Dalek saying, "The Doctor must be Exterminated!" And then a myriad of Sontarans, Silurians, and all those terrors she had faced in all her 14 lives chanted in one voice: "DEATH to the Doctor."

"No, no, this isn't right," she heaved. She clutched her legs as she sank down to the floor, her two hearts beating.

"O, but it is Doctor, you keep proving it, " The voice said again. "Maybe you shouldn't regenerate this time, and just breathe your last."

"Maybe…" she gasped.

She heard the squeak of the TARDIS doors, and as the footsteps came closer, she looked up to see a familiar face. "So this is my replacement, well one of them, at least." The quizzical look, the blue, patchwork, jacket. It made her smile a little.

"How did you find me?" She asked.

"The TARDIS sent a distress signal, probably to itself at all points in time, and I answered. Come on then, let's get you back on your feet." Her sixth life gave out his hand, and she took it, getting back up. She then hugged her former self. "What's gotten you down, Doctor?"

"I guess, pre-regeneration trauma," she sighed.

"Oh yes, that," she shook his head. "Has it happened many times… after me?"

"Not really, but the last regeneration suffered it, but it somehow hurts more this time."

"Physically, or mentally?"

"Both. I just don't want to suffer through it if it hurts the more I do it! Sometimes I want the fire to just engulf me and just be done with life."

"Now, now there. That doesn't sound like the Doctor to me."

Her eyes widened and she looked deeply into her sixth self. "Maybe your right. It's funny, I heard Peri telling me to not give up a few minutes before you came in."

The sixth Doctor chuckled. "Well, I'd agree with Peri this time."

The Doctor gave a smile back. "Yes, your right. She's right. Jamie, Graham, and the rest were right. I'm the Doctor, and I still have a duty- to do what's right."

"Now that's the Doctor. I hope the best for you, well, I guess that's the obvious." He smiled, and turned, but then said, "Be the Doctor, no matter what." And then went his way.

She waited till the TARDIS doors closed before she collapsed. She let the energy flow freely from her. And it did hurt. She doubled her fists, but it was too late. All she could do was bear it. "Be the Doctor," she said through gritted teeth. She gasped her last breath and laid peacefully. The change had already begun. Straight, blonde hair curled and became a long, rich brown. Green eyes becoming a light hazel.

She stood up and breathed her first. She looked around the bedroom and smiled, running from the hallway in the Console room, and quickly pulled the lever. The gently whizzing of the TARDIS excited her.

She looked at her reflection in the walls and smiled. "First, you'll need a new dress, second, this will be a new adventure. Oh, and by the way, you can call me the Doctor."


End file.
